Showing posts with label NRI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NRI. Show all posts
Sunday, March 30, 2008
A question...
Am hoping some RNRIs will write in. When things don't go your way in India - the gas is out, the maid doesn't show up, traffic -- what do you do? Is there a magic thing I can say or do to keep from getting so angry and cursing a whole country instead of that piece of the puzzle...
Sunday, March 9, 2008
No longer kissing cousins
Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita
http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/01/10231952/No-longer-kissing-cousins.html
We four NRIs (non-resident Indians) sat around the table, dipping pita into hummus, sipping sangria, talking Hillary Clinton vs Barack Obama.
Once our visitors grew comfortable, their real views tumbled out: “Everyone here just wants to hustle you,” said one woman in town for business.
“Nobody in this country wants to do anything for the sheer love of it,” said another, here to organize a music festival, unable to find free performers.
“Well, not really,” I retorted. “You can’t blame people for wanting to make their share if you’re coming in to profit off their labour.”
My husband nudged me. I shut up. The conversation topic changed.
That night, in the safety and honesty of bed, I said what I really meant: “NRIs can be so annoying. All they do is complain about India. Why do they even come?”
The obviously hypocritical question (my family and I moved here last year after lifetimes in the US) remained with me, especially this week as the biggest NRI jamboree unfolded yet again in New Delhi, and thousands of the diaspora were heralded for doing India proud. In panel discussion after panel discussion, delegates attempted a delicate balancing act between decrying the state of Indian poverty, bureaucracy, infrastructure and celebrating Indian culture, values, heritage.
This was my second Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, as the event is known. The first time I attended, in 2004, I was promoting a book I had just written on Indian immigration to the US. Back then, I was an NRI in every definition of the acronym: Non-Resident Indian, Not Really Indian, Non Reliable Indian, Know It All. Pictures of me ran on the front pages of Indian newspapers. I made some appearances on television. When I headed to my parents’ native Assam a few days later, I again was garlanded and applauded.
Between then and now, so much has changed—namely me and India’s attitudes towards people like me.
In a satirical essay in Outlook magazine last month, historian and writer Ramachandra Guha labelled winter the season of the “NRI puja”. He wrote, “When these family NRIs appear, we, mere permanent residents, are obliged to pay homage, altering our own lives and work schedules to do so. It is striking how naturally we slip into the role of worshippers; they, as naturally, into the role of the worshipped.”
Even The Patna Daily has gotten in on the NRI bashing: “Now, if you get a tourist visa and come to America for four months, you are an NRI. If you went to Singapore on a business trip, you immediately acquire the status of an NRI. Oh yeah, let’s not forget about your trip to Nepal.”
An excerpt from a website offering advice to someone about to move to India: “As long as you’re open and don’t show a lot of that ‘Indo-American’ attitude (trust me, a lot of NRIs do it and its [sic] annoying enough to make anyone scream)…”
This time at the conference I was thankfully barely recognized. Now feeling quite at home in India, I looked around and wondered if those gathered really pondered free trade agreements and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. (Note to next year’s organizers, most of this crowd worries more about teaching their children Bharatanatyam or setting up temples that can rival Akshardham and Tirupati.)
As the man at the dais began his talk on infrastructure with the words, “We became an independent nation in 1947,” I rolled my eyes and prepared to leave. But first, I turned to the random guy sitting next to me:
“Why did you come here?”
“This is my first time in India,” Dhurmanund Gobin said, smiling. “I am from Mauritius.”
He told me he had just turned 58 that day and pulled out his national identity card to prove it. An identity that showed him belonging elsewhere.
“Our forefathers were very poor people but they worked hard so we could get an education. And they never let us forget India. …When I landed here,” he said, “I felt like I am in my true land.”
I thought of the international arrivals terminal at the airport, especially between the 10pm and 2am. Each time, the crowds gathered to greet NRIs feels thinner and thinner. But the joy on the faces of the greeted and the greeters hasn’t changed much.
A man like Gobind, of course, wouldn’t have family waiting for him; he doesn’t know exactly where in Bihar his grandfather left. And so he showed up to this conference, hoping to belong as he heard how he too could invest in roads and bridges.
His search for identity is one I imagine many global Indians—here, there, everywhere and nowhere—share. This recent tide of NRI bashing feels like an overdue, inevitable threshold. On the other side, we might shed the useless labels and accept and embrace our global, fluid, confused identities. That would be worth celebrating.
http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/01/10231952/No-longer-kissing-cousins.html
We four NRIs (non-resident Indians) sat around the table, dipping pita into hummus, sipping sangria, talking Hillary Clinton vs Barack Obama.
Once our visitors grew comfortable, their real views tumbled out: “Everyone here just wants to hustle you,” said one woman in town for business.
“Nobody in this country wants to do anything for the sheer love of it,” said another, here to organize a music festival, unable to find free performers.
“Well, not really,” I retorted. “You can’t blame people for wanting to make their share if you’re coming in to profit off their labour.”
My husband nudged me. I shut up. The conversation topic changed.
That night, in the safety and honesty of bed, I said what I really meant: “NRIs can be so annoying. All they do is complain about India. Why do they even come?”
The obviously hypocritical question (my family and I moved here last year after lifetimes in the US) remained with me, especially this week as the biggest NRI jamboree unfolded yet again in New Delhi, and thousands of the diaspora were heralded for doing India proud. In panel discussion after panel discussion, delegates attempted a delicate balancing act between decrying the state of Indian poverty, bureaucracy, infrastructure and celebrating Indian culture, values, heritage.
This was my second Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, as the event is known. The first time I attended, in 2004, I was promoting a book I had just written on Indian immigration to the US. Back then, I was an NRI in every definition of the acronym: Non-Resident Indian, Not Really Indian, Non Reliable Indian, Know It All. Pictures of me ran on the front pages of Indian newspapers. I made some appearances on television. When I headed to my parents’ native Assam a few days later, I again was garlanded and applauded.
Between then and now, so much has changed—namely me and India’s attitudes towards people like me.
In a satirical essay in Outlook magazine last month, historian and writer Ramachandra Guha labelled winter the season of the “NRI puja”. He wrote, “When these family NRIs appear, we, mere permanent residents, are obliged to pay homage, altering our own lives and work schedules to do so. It is striking how naturally we slip into the role of worshippers; they, as naturally, into the role of the worshipped.”
Even The Patna Daily has gotten in on the NRI bashing: “Now, if you get a tourist visa and come to America for four months, you are an NRI. If you went to Singapore on a business trip, you immediately acquire the status of an NRI. Oh yeah, let’s not forget about your trip to Nepal.”
An excerpt from a website offering advice to someone about to move to India: “As long as you’re open and don’t show a lot of that ‘Indo-American’ attitude (trust me, a lot of NRIs do it and its [sic] annoying enough to make anyone scream)…”
This time at the conference I was thankfully barely recognized. Now feeling quite at home in India, I looked around and wondered if those gathered really pondered free trade agreements and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. (Note to next year’s organizers, most of this crowd worries more about teaching their children Bharatanatyam or setting up temples that can rival Akshardham and Tirupati.)
As the man at the dais began his talk on infrastructure with the words, “We became an independent nation in 1947,” I rolled my eyes and prepared to leave. But first, I turned to the random guy sitting next to me:
“Why did you come here?”
“This is my first time in India,” Dhurmanund Gobin said, smiling. “I am from Mauritius.”
He told me he had just turned 58 that day and pulled out his national identity card to prove it. An identity that showed him belonging elsewhere.
“Our forefathers were very poor people but they worked hard so we could get an education. And they never let us forget India. …When I landed here,” he said, “I felt like I am in my true land.”
I thought of the international arrivals terminal at the airport, especially between the 10pm and 2am. Each time, the crowds gathered to greet NRIs feels thinner and thinner. But the joy on the faces of the greeted and the greeters hasn’t changed much.
A man like Gobind, of course, wouldn’t have family waiting for him; he doesn’t know exactly where in Bihar his grandfather left. And so he showed up to this conference, hoping to belong as he heard how he too could invest in roads and bridges.
His search for identity is one I imagine many global Indians—here, there, everywhere and nowhere—share. This recent tide of NRI bashing feels like an overdue, inevitable threshold. On the other side, we might shed the useless labels and accept and embrace our global, fluid, confused identities. That would be worth celebrating.
No longer kissing cousins
Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita
http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/01/10231952/No-longer-kissing-cousins.html
Stop burping. Only disclose your salary to your mother. Don’t tell your colleagues they are fat, dark or have bad skin.
Finally, a book has crossed my desk —issued by a company, no less—that is actually blunt, useful and relevant, even necessary, for the modern Indian workplace.
In fact, the long list on page 33 of InCorporate: Communication etiquette for today’s workplace makes abundantly clear why such rules are needed. In a section devoted to the art of making small talk, the book advises Indians which topics to avoid.
Consider the banned: politics and religion, personal health problems or misfortune; stories and jokes of questionable taste; remarks about ethnic, racial or gender groups; gossip and hearsay; controversial issues such as abortion; intimate details about yourself or others; one’s income or the price of personal things.
If your family is anything like mine, we breeze through most of those subjects by morning tea.
And so this 103-page guide, published by Standard Chartered’s business processing unit Scope International Pvt. Ltd, offers insight into why assimilation can be so tough for new entrants to the workforce.
Over the last year, we officially became a nation obsessed with “soft skills”. Company after company decries the sorry state of the Indian education system, as well as the lack of exposure of new hires from lower-rung institutes and second-tier towns. The nature of networking and interaction —in and out of the office, the personal becoming professional—is changing rapidly. The chap who doesn’t remember which knife butters his bread warrants forgiveness—and instruction.
Scope International released the book just about one year ago, a part of its desire to give new hires “a strong foundation for stepping into the demanding lanes of corporate life,” writes Scope chief executive Sreeram Iyer in his introduction.
Noteworthy is that little of the book dwells on Scope’s internal ethos or systems. These days, far too many human resources managers seem stuck in the yesteryear of training for lifelong service to one employer or orientations about the mundane: Please download all 56 expense forms off our intranet. The canteen serves vegetarian cuisine on Tuesdays. All leave requests must be cc-ed to the new department of authorized absences.
So, Scope’s straight talk is refreshing. “…be a ‘solution provider’ rather than a ‘reason-giver’,” it advises. Do not instantly hit reply all on emails. Avoid composing emails when emotional or angry. Do not blow noses into cloth napkins; they are not handkerchiefs.
The cellphone etiquette section ought to be adopted by every office and posted as mission statement: Turn phones off during meetings. Avoid long songs as ring tones. (My addendum: Take the device with you as you roam the office or the bathroom.)
Scope spokesperson Shashi Ravichandran notes a difference among workers. “Soft skills are one such area which builds their capability and confidence and grooms potential managers and leaders,” she said. “It helps their development by enabling them to communicate effectively and adapt to multi-cultural landscapes.”
And yet as I came to certain commandments, such as “Thou shalt not eat with thy fingers” or “Thou shall respect two feet of personal space,” I began to wonder if what is becoming accepted as workplace etiquette is really a misnomer for Western etiquette.
What prevents us from dipping into the fish curry or mutton biryani with our hands because, practically speaking, that really is the best way to debone, eat and enjoy? And is it really rude to slip into mother tongues when the urge strikes? Can we see the silver lining in some elements of our unique Indian behaviours; bluntness as a plus point, perhaps?
The answer is ultimately dictated not by cultural supremacy but business. If a client is Western, then leave the Tamil behind and just bring on circuitous conversations about the weather. But if a client is Indian, is there a need to lose ourselves?
Ravichandran assured me Scope doesn’t want “change in our personal traits which make us stand apart as individuals, but change in our style of communication and an international approach to work practices.”
If 2007 wound down with a rebuffed Ratan Tata demanding respect and an apology from Orient-Express (with a name like that, sensitivity seems the last thing to expect), let this year begin as the one where office integration works both ways, or perhaps several. It’s not a bad idea for educational institutes to hand out new rules for the workplace with diplomas, and for companies to do so along with offer letters—with the caveat that exceptions must exist in a world trying to understand India as much as the reverse.
But East or West, the verdict on Kajra Re as ring tone is clear. It is globally accepted...as annoying.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com
http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2008/01/10231952/No-longer-kissing-cousins.html
Stop burping. Only disclose your salary to your mother. Don’t tell your colleagues they are fat, dark or have bad skin.
Finally, a book has crossed my desk —issued by a company, no less—that is actually blunt, useful and relevant, even necessary, for the modern Indian workplace.
In fact, the long list on page 33 of InCorporate: Communication etiquette for today’s workplace makes abundantly clear why such rules are needed. In a section devoted to the art of making small talk, the book advises Indians which topics to avoid.
Consider the banned: politics and religion, personal health problems or misfortune; stories and jokes of questionable taste; remarks about ethnic, racial or gender groups; gossip and hearsay; controversial issues such as abortion; intimate details about yourself or others; one’s income or the price of personal things.
If your family is anything like mine, we breeze through most of those subjects by morning tea.
And so this 103-page guide, published by Standard Chartered’s business processing unit Scope International Pvt. Ltd, offers insight into why assimilation can be so tough for new entrants to the workforce.
Over the last year, we officially became a nation obsessed with “soft skills”. Company after company decries the sorry state of the Indian education system, as well as the lack of exposure of new hires from lower-rung institutes and second-tier towns. The nature of networking and interaction —in and out of the office, the personal becoming professional—is changing rapidly. The chap who doesn’t remember which knife butters his bread warrants forgiveness—and instruction.
Scope International released the book just about one year ago, a part of its desire to give new hires “a strong foundation for stepping into the demanding lanes of corporate life,” writes Scope chief executive Sreeram Iyer in his introduction.
Noteworthy is that little of the book dwells on Scope’s internal ethos or systems. These days, far too many human resources managers seem stuck in the yesteryear of training for lifelong service to one employer or orientations about the mundane: Please download all 56 expense forms off our intranet. The canteen serves vegetarian cuisine on Tuesdays. All leave requests must be cc-ed to the new department of authorized absences.
So, Scope’s straight talk is refreshing. “…be a ‘solution provider’ rather than a ‘reason-giver’,” it advises. Do not instantly hit reply all on emails. Avoid composing emails when emotional or angry. Do not blow noses into cloth napkins; they are not handkerchiefs.
The cellphone etiquette section ought to be adopted by every office and posted as mission statement: Turn phones off during meetings. Avoid long songs as ring tones. (My addendum: Take the device with you as you roam the office or the bathroom.)
Scope spokesperson Shashi Ravichandran notes a difference among workers. “Soft skills are one such area which builds their capability and confidence and grooms potential managers and leaders,” she said. “It helps their development by enabling them to communicate effectively and adapt to multi-cultural landscapes.”
And yet as I came to certain commandments, such as “Thou shalt not eat with thy fingers” or “Thou shall respect two feet of personal space,” I began to wonder if what is becoming accepted as workplace etiquette is really a misnomer for Western etiquette.
What prevents us from dipping into the fish curry or mutton biryani with our hands because, practically speaking, that really is the best way to debone, eat and enjoy? And is it really rude to slip into mother tongues when the urge strikes? Can we see the silver lining in some elements of our unique Indian behaviours; bluntness as a plus point, perhaps?
The answer is ultimately dictated not by cultural supremacy but business. If a client is Western, then leave the Tamil behind and just bring on circuitous conversations about the weather. But if a client is Indian, is there a need to lose ourselves?
Ravichandran assured me Scope doesn’t want “change in our personal traits which make us stand apart as individuals, but change in our style of communication and an international approach to work practices.”
If 2007 wound down with a rebuffed Ratan Tata demanding respect and an apology from Orient-Express (with a name like that, sensitivity seems the last thing to expect), let this year begin as the one where office integration works both ways, or perhaps several. It’s not a bad idea for educational institutes to hand out new rules for the workplace with diplomas, and for companies to do so along with offer letters—with the caveat that exceptions must exist in a world trying to understand India as much as the reverse.
But East or West, the verdict on Kajra Re as ring tone is clear. It is globally accepted...as annoying.
Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Not Really Indian debate continues...
Check out this article in Outlook by Ramchandra Guha on the other worship in Decmber -- of the NRI
Then check out this response.
Warning registrattion required but well worth it. Then tell me what you think.
Then check out this response.
Warning registrattion required but well worth it. Then tell me what you think.
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